Articles & Analysis

"Shots Fired" - Bedouin Courts League Discipline

The Scorpions locker room was not a happy scene after tonight's surprise loss to the Skyhawks in game 2 of their first-round series.

The game was disappointing on a wide range of fronts. Firstly, the home loss, only their 7th this season, costs them the home court advantage that they'd worked for all year.

Secondly the nature of the loss, a 14-point game that was over shortly after halftime, brings into serious question the team's credentials as it attempts to defend its championship.

Finally the performance tonight will only embolden the reports that the team has been deeply impacted by the rumours that GM Bedouin will be leaving the organization at the conclusion of this season.

Interviewing players and staff in the locker room after a tough loss like this is never an enjoyable task. You get a lot of short and surly answers, answers which do you as a journalist no favours. But more importantly you feel like you are invading their space at a personal time. Honestly it can make you feel like a bit of a parasitic asshole.

Tonight the mood was perhaps the worst I'd seen it all year and the repeated questions to the players surrounding Bedouin's future weren't helping matters. Bedouin himself had refused to speak to the media all night and by this point team PR had a man keeping the reporters away from Bedouin who was off in a corner of the locker room speaking animatedly to coach McLain, who eventually patted him of the shoulder and wandered off to prepare for his time at the podium. I walked past on my way to try and get a quote from HP about his game when Bedouin caught sight of me and called me over. The PR flak tried his best to get between us but after being a shot a death stare from the man in charge he quickly retreated.

Despite knowing the answer, I asked Bedouin if he'd like to discuss the rumours and he laughed refusing to dignify them with any comment beyond the repeated mantra; 'fake news.' But he did have something he wanted to talk to me about, and what he had to say reminded me why we hang out in losing locker rooms. Sometimes in the heat of the moment people give really good quotes.

"Skip, do you know how many FTs they shot this evening?"

I started to look it up, but he cut me off, and I decided from that from here I'd just let him go, pushing the recorder closer to his face.

"It's a rhetorical question Skip. They took 40 damn FTs. Do you know how many we took? We took 9 fucking FTs. We average 20 FTA a game and we took 9 tonight. Do you know how many FTA the Skyhawks usually take? 17, Skip and we usually allow closer to 16. Take that shit for data."

"So, when someone from the league office calls me up about this maybe they can explain to me how the fuck we shot less than half the number of FTs we usually do despite scoring 56 points in the damn paint when at the same time they managed to shoot more than double their normal figures. Cause I don't fucking understand."

"We can't win basketball games if HP and Lorenzen can't stay on the floor because of soft ticky tacky bullshit fouls. And do you know what really pisses me off about all this. The sense of fucking déjà vu. Cause when I see that box score I see that old bastard Oliver. Why are the refs protecting him this time? Are they worried he's gonna pop his fucking hip. Seriously. Maybe Rowland needs to put Marley and Benj out there some more, maybe they register for senior citizen protection."

"You know what, at the end of the day it's pretty fucking challenging to win a game of basketball when you're playing two opponents. I'll leave it at that."

I sighed and began to respond, "You know this is gonna cost..."

He laughed. "I know I'll be hearing from someone as soon as you put this up online Skip. But fuck it. My guys deserve better than this crap. Fight the Power. I'm out."

And with that Bedouin wandered out a side door and I raced to the office to post this story which certainly result in discipline from the league office. We will update this story when this occurs.